The Most Insignificant Sabre of the Last Decade: Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre

In a quest to determine The Most Insignificant Sabre of the Last Decade, The Goose’s Roost will profile one effectively useless player a day. After the profiles are all said and done, we will put up a poll with all of the finalists. The player receiving the most votes will be crowned Most Insignificant.

Today’s candidate comes from Brian S. and seconded by Porky at Side of Pork in the comments: Former Sabres defenseman Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre. If you have any other nominations, leave them here or in the or in the original post.

Acquired by the Sabres: Traded from St. Louis Blues with a 2nd round pick in the 1996 draft and a 3rd round pick in the 1997 draft to the Sabres for Yuri Kymylev and8th pick in the 1996 draft (via hockeydb)

After Buffalo: After being traded to Columbus for “future considerations” during the Expansion Draft, Grand-Pierre went on to play two full seasons for the Blue Jackets and parts of a third. Since then, he saw time in Atlanta, Washington, and overseas. This past season, Jean-Luc played for the Lowell Devils of the AHL.

Ebay swag: You can get a puck, autographed by Jean-Luc outside of the players hotel in St. Paul, for $8.95 or best offer. I may be going out on a limb here, but I’m saying any offer is going to win it.

Why Grand-Pierre should be Most Insignificant: He played in 31 total games for the franchise, and his claim to fame is still being “one of those big black defensemen that played a few games for us.”

Why Grand-Pierre should not be Most Insignificant: Amazingly, some people still walk around with his jersey on. Porky claims to have seen a Grand-Pierre jersey at the Winter Classic, and I just came across this the other day:

I walked in to my friend’s house on Saturday night and spotted this picture on a photo collage on his wall. It is apparently a friend of his, and the picture was shot around Christmastime of ’07.

So he’s got at least two fans out there.

That does it for our second finalist, Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre. Should he be the “winner?” Let us know in the comments.